Advice to George Zimmerman From a Former Fugitive From Justice

There’s nothing to gain from jumping bail, writes Mansfield Frazier.

George, you did the right thing by turning yourself in. Whatever you do now, don’t jump bail!

Back in the day, when I was a counterfeiter of credit cards, I, along with other members of my crew, had a saying: “Catchin’ comes before hangin.' ” At the first sign of trouble we’d be off like a bunch of turkeys through the corn, attempting to outrun the long arm of the law. But the law almost eventually catches up with you; they’ve got nothing but time.

Of course, like in the case of D.B. Cooper (the dude who parachuted out of a hijacked 727 near Portland, Ore., back in 1971), law enforcement never likes to talk about the ones who got away. In Cooper’s case they spread the story no one could have survived the fall—but they never came up with a body to prove their theory.

But, George, you’re no D.B. Cooper and if the lawyers who recently resigned as your attorneys of record are to be believed, you’ve already gone hiding away once somewhere out of the state of Florida, holed up, shaking like a puppy passing peach pits. Now that you’ve turned yourself in, if you again go underground, it will throw the most high-profile case of the century (at least so far) into further chaos and turmoil.

George, living life on the lam, is nerve-racking. It doesn’t take long before the last one in your body is shot to hell. Even if you’ve mastered the game of making false IDs so good they can fool law enforcement (a skill you simply haven’t had the time to acquire) you’re still walking around as nervous as a ‘ho in church. Every time a police cruiser goes past, let alone if the cops pull up behind you, your sphincter muscle tightens up enough to make your ass watertight, and you’ll come within a heartbeat of your bladder betraying you.

If you do go running, always, and I do mean always, keep a clean change of underwear in your back pocket—you’ll never know when you’re going to need it.

And buy yourself a dog. That way maybe you can get some sleep, since if the law is closing in you can hope the dog will bark and alert you. Of course, you might not need the dog since your hearing will soon become so fine-tuned you’ll be able to hear a rat piss on cotton at 50 paces. You’ll be hearing things way out of the range of other human beings—you’ll be able to hear dog whistles, and, indeed, things that aren’t even there. It’s called paranoia, but hey, when they really are after you, it really isn’t paranoia, is it?

And when the reward gets high enough, don’t sleep at all. When it’s in the seven-figure range, trust no one. Men with teams of bloodhounds will be on you like a cheap suit.

And George, if that is you tweeting? Stop it if you decide to go off the grid. It’s just one more set of bread crumbs for the police to follow, and the award seekers.

Always, and I do mean always, keep a clean change of underwear in your back pocket—you’ll never know when you’re going to need it.

There perhaps is one way to stay hidden if you make a run for it: Make it up to one of the white supremacists strongholds in and around Mountain Home, in southern Idaho. The feds will never admit it, but in certain neck of the woods, they’re not about to go in and try to execute a warrant no matter what crime you’re wanted for. It ain’t worth the firefight that would be ignited.